Posts Tagged ‘Toby D. COuture’

Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on energy after a tour of a Solar Panel Field at the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility, the largest photovoltaic plant operating in the country with nearly one million solar panels powering 17,000 homes, in Boulder City, Nevada, March 21, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

(Please click on red for more, below)

Yes, I’m well aware of what’s been happening in Nevada and can fully appreciate the frustration of solar folks out there. But I waited because I wanted to see the reaction of people from Nevada. I trust that there are sufficient number of people all over the country now who are in support of a clean environment and renewable future that there would be plenty of reactions about the recent decision of Nevada PUC (Public Utility Commission, the regulatory body that sets rules for the state’s electricity, gas, and water utilities). What I do not understand is how Nevada PUC reached the decision to cut net metering rates and increase the residential PV owner rate ($40 per month) payable to the state utility, NV Energy. Does Nevada PUC realize that such an attempt to stifle solar energy industry in the short term may actually speed up the rate of destruction of NV Energy in the long run? Or perhaps Nevada PUC simply does not understand sufficiently the overall changing landscape of energy use to propose more effective measures to adapt to the changing need.

The signs and shouts of “Don’t tax the sun!”, “Sandoval stole my sunshine!“,”Solar lives matter!” of hundreds of residents of Las Vegas were heard throughout the country! Those angry protestors outside of the Nevada’s PUC were led by celebrity actor Mark Ruffalo, who shouted, “Let’s make life uncomfortable for them, for the Governor, for the PUC. Because they’re wrong!”

Here is the response from one of the Nevada residents to Governor Brian Sandoval and the Nevada PUC about the recent Nevada Solar ruling, below:

The new fee of $40 per month won’t only apply to new solar customers, but also to the 12,000 or so people who already own solar panels. As a result of this new decision, selling solar in Nevada will no longer make economic sense for solar installer such as Solar City, cutting 550 jobs from Nevada to be relocated to more solar-friendly states during the first week of January this year. Other solar installers such as Vivint Solar have similar plans, which will translate into loss of thousands of jobs from state of Nevada if such a poor decision is not remedied or reversed. Sunrun even filed an open records request for communication betweenNV Energy employees, lobbyists, Gov. Sandoval and his staff, and current PUC Chairman Paul Thomsen. After Sunrun’s request was refused, Sunrun sued Sandoval.

I believe in order for all of us, the energy consumers as well as the power generators, to evolve during this period of transition, we all need to learn, collaborate effectively, and be willing to evolve to the next stage of human history. I believe what we need is better understanding of feed-in-tariff at Value of Solar. In order to be able to step into the next stage of the game and be fair to all parties involved and/or be able to establish stability in our grid or potential future microgrids, I’d like to offer some information and words of wisdom by those who have already put much time and energy into studying the energy generation and management issues. Please allow me to share what Karl Rabago and Toby D. Couture have concluded, below:

Much remains to be seen and learned before Nevada PUC regulators’ next hearing on February 8, 2016. I hope they will make attempt in consulting Karl Rabago and/or Toby D. Couture before the next hearing.

~have a bright and sunny day~

gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker

any questions, suggestions, and concerns will be welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com

Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,

(Please click on red links & note magenta)

After much careful consideration, I’ve decided to still post this piece on “Please Support These Solar Car Teams“. I want to clarify that these teams come from cultural backgrounds that do not complain much nor easily request for assistance from others. Therefore, none of the teams nor their team leaders had asked me to post this piece. It is based on other sources and my personal observations that had brought me to the conclusion. I would also like to remind every one that the goal of these challenges, whether it be World Solar Challenges, American Solar Challenges, Abu Dhabi Solar Challenges, SaSol Solar Challenges of South Africa, the purpose is to stimulate learning opportunities, exchange ideas to stimulate the growth of Solar Energy, and help our future generations to transition into solar energy quickly. In order to help our planet to transition into a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable place to live in, we need to help all continents and countries to transition into EV (Electric Vehicle) and Solar Energy Age. So, I am taking this opportunity to shout out to electric vehicle companies such as Tesla Motors, Nissan, BYD, Ford, General Motors, etc. to ask for assistance for these teams in whichever way possible.

First: the two new solar cars from South Africa- Sirius X25 of North West University and Hulamin-iKlwa of University of Qwa Zulu Natal are the first and only two entrants from Africa. Both of these two teams are on very tight budget. They represent our hope for the solar future in the African continent, a place with much future growth potential.

WSC2015-Sirius X25 of North West University from South Africa (credit: sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker)

WSC2015-Hulamin-iKlwa of University of Qwa Zulu Natal from South Africa (credit: sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker)

Second: first entrant from China-Sun Shuttle of Beijing Institute of Technology entered for the second time. Contrary to what some other bloggers presumed, Sun Shuttle hardly had any support this time. It’s amazing that they actually made it to WSC2015! For the good of the planet, it is critical for the Chinese to transition into EV (electric vehicle) and Solar EV future, because China is inhabited by one fifth of the earth’s population. A cleaner China will translate into a cleaner planet earth!

Third: Aurora of Aurora Vehicle Association has entered every World Solar Challenge since 1987 until this year (2015). Apparently Aurora’s loss of its garage workspace further led to dramatic decrease in membership of the organization. It would be a pity not to see Aurora of Aurora Vehicle Association, the most competitive entrant of our hosting country Australia, in the future. It would feel as though part of the tradition of World Solar Challenge has been lost.

I hope all electric vehicle companies, solar enthusiasts, car enthusiasts, or simply any one who is interested in protecting our planet from pollution and accelerated climate change would reach out to these universities and organizations mentioned above, to show interest in helping these solar car teams.

More posts about World Solar Challenge 2015 will be coming.

As I’ve previously mentioned in an earlier post: If any solar car team needs to have a fund raising campaign, Sun Is The Future would be gladly help in letting the world know about your fund raising campaign. But it is crucial that individual solar car team would set up their own campaign and provide their own web site with appropriate contact information before contacting Sun Is The Future at sunisthefuture@gmail.com . Sun Is The Future will help to promote campaigns but would not be involved with the collection of donations.

Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,

"Let The SunShine In The Sunshine State!" Petition Campaign Image (Requesting that the Florida legislators to consider implementing Feed-In-Tariff For Solar/Renewable Energy With Incorporation of Value of Solar/Renewable Energy (credit:sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker)

(Please click on red links and note magenta)

As a resident of Florida, I am naturally very concerned about future welfare of the state of Florida. To prevent losing portion of the state of Florida to the ocean within our life time, further development of extreme climate conditions while helping renewable energy industries to thrive in Florida, the most effective policy is to implement Feed-In-Tariff For Solar/Renewable Energy With Incorporation of Value of Solar/Renewable Energy. This policy will lead to reduction of CO2 and our utility bills, solving energy and pollution problems while creating local jobs. For better understanding of the topic of Feed-In-Tariff policy and Value of Solar, please visit and share links below. In the state of Florida, there is plentiful Sunshine that can be put into good use. Sunshine has proven to be the least harmful source of energy and will soon be the least costly source of energy as well. Incorporating Value of Solar/Renewable Energy via Feed-In-Tariff is the most fair and effective way to utilize our solar/renewable energy.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of NYC, other cities in USA and elsewhere in the world, on Sunday (September 21, 2014), Monday (September 22, 2014) and Tuesday (September 23, 2014), demanding world leaders to do more to take serious actions to slow the Climate Change. In NYC (New York City) alone, there were 310,000 people showing up to march for Climate Justice. So far, there is no global agreement on what to do regarding Climate Change, even though some countries have already taken actions in reducing CO2 emissions (such as Australia’s previous Carbon Tax, European nations (esp. policies by Germany, Italy, and UK), China’s, Taiwan’s, and Japan’s Feed-In-Tariff for Solar & Wind & switching from coal to natural gas, U.S. has switched from coal to natural gas and increased solar and wind installations). This largest climate march in history involves approximately 1500 organizations, but is mostly organized by AVAAZ (with membership of over 30 million people according to wikipedia) and 350.org . It has brought together great diversity of people from different social, economic, political, and religious affiliations. It is purposely designed to take place prior to the UN meeting on Tuesday, September 23, 2014, when discussion regarding future direction and finance associated with the topic of climate change will be taking place.

Here, at Sun Is The Future, we’d like to implore leaders of the world to consider implementing Feed-In-Tariff For Renewable Energy: Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) have proven to be the world’s most successful policy for delivering large quantities of renewable energy generation quickly and cheaply. It will help to develop vibrant renewable energy industries (solar-wind-water-geothermal-wave ) that will Reduce CO2 emissions, Slow Climate Change, Solve Energy Problem, Create Local Jobs, by using our abundant Sunshine and various Renewable Resources. We believe, by implementing Feed-In-Tariff For Renewable Energy, incorporating True Value of Each and Every Renewable Energy, Feed-In-Tariff For Renewable Energy will be implemented most effectively.

This is what hope looks like:

Above photo from @cynryan on Twitter

Below, is part of the email received from Jamie from 350.org

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

On Monday, 310,000 people took to the streets of New York City to call for climate action — the largest climate march in history.

And on Tuesday, the world’s politicians will gather in New York to talk about climate action — 125 heads of state in total. They’ll be gathering with the knowledge that more people than ever are demanding action, not just words, and that their political future is on the line — as well as the future of the planet.

We will bring that message to the top leadership of the UN inside Tuesday’s summit, with a hand-delivered message to top UN climate negotiators. If you stand with the hundreds of thousands of people who marched today around the world, tell world leaders that you mean business: act.350.org/letter/ready-for-action/

Today people from the communities where fossil fuels are dug up marched alongside people who live where they are burned. Thousands of workers, the people who stand ready to build a clean, renewable energy system, walked alongside indigenous communities that are already leading with their own climate solutions.

New Yorkers, including those whose homes were wrecked by Superstorm Sandy, marched in huge numbers, standing alongside international ambassadors from communities responding to climate disasters worldwide.

The ripples of the People’s Climate Mobilization are already spreading. A people’s summit outlining the path to a just transition away from fossil fuels starts tomorrow, along with actions targeting corporate polluters in New York.

We hope the UN leaders have heard our voices and will seriously consider implementing Feed-In-Tariff For Renewable Energy With Incorporation of True Value of Each and Every Renewable Energy throughout our planet earth.

Barclays is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London. It is a universal bank with operations in retail, wholesale and investment banking, as well as wealth management, mortgage lending and credit cards. It has operations in over 50 countries and territories and has around 48 million customers. As of 31 December 2011 Barclays had total assets of US$2.42 trillion, the seventh-largest of any bank worldwide. This PLC (public limited company) organization has been around since 1690, obviously with plenty of experience in observing and forecasting trends of various types.

Well, recently Barclays downgraded the whole U.S. electricity sector, listing it as “underweight.” That means Barclays have little confidence in U.S. electric utilities being able to keep up with the broader economic growth trends. The critical factor lies in the disruptive solar-plus-battery systems. In this Barclays report:

Over the next few years… we believe that a confluence of declining cost trends in distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation and residential-scale power storage is likely to disrupt the status quo. Based on our analysis, the cost of solar + storage for residential consumers of electricity is already competitive with the price of utility grid power in Hawaii. Of the other major markets, California could follow in 2017, New York and Arizona in 2018, and many other states soon after.

In the 100-plus year history of the electric utility industry, there has never before been a truly cost-competitive substitute available for grid power. We believe that solar + storage could reconfigure the organisation and regulation of the electric power business over the coming decade.

Some of you out there may have previously come across another recent report, The Economics of Grid Defection, with similar language or logic, by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). RMI was forecasting the declining costs of solar plus storage and the soon-to-arrive days when when those systems could reach parity with grid-sourced retail price electricity in a growing number of markets, including Hawaii, California, and New York. In fact, the Barclays report cites RMI as a key source in several of its analyses that lead to this conclusion.

Barclays believes we’re entering a post-monopoly world in which distributed energy resources will take place alongside large-scale central generation as a critical energy resource and a widely available and affordable customer option. In a surprisingly strong prediction for analysts, Barclays views this transition as inevitable: “Whatever roadblocks utilities try to toss up—and there’s already been plenty of tossing in the states most vulnerable to solar, further evidence of the pressures they’re facing—it’s already too late.” A downgrade suggests two possible outcomes in the near future: 1) analysts tend to move in herds, so expect more news on the U.S. electric sector soon, and 2) capital is likely to get a bit more expensive for utilities, as millions of dollars shift out of the sector. It’s not all bad news, as indicated recently in “Caveat Investor,” this should ultimately lead to a stronger, more resilient power sector with stronger overall valuations, but the transition is likely to be volatile. The Barclays report suggests we’re about to enter that volatile transition phase.

To learn and quote from Rocky Mountain Institute, what does a utility downgrade mean for the future of distributed renewables, 4 points are listed below:

1) Distributed energy is hitting the mainstream. Historically, it’s renewables’ creditworthiness that has been challenged (while utilities have been considered rock solid), but now this trend appears to be reversing. We’ve seen declining costs of capital in solar (as recent securitizations demonstrate), new financial instruments emerging for related technologies, and lower costs overall. Despite this progress, there is still a large gap between the market acceptance of renewables and the market acceptance of central, fossil-fueled generation. The recent downgrade suggests that people are starting to take distributed renewables seriously, and that utilities and renewables are entering a period of equal (or at least comparable) market strength.

2) Issuing new bonds for thermal fossil generation will become more expensive. While many people focus on the construction costs of new assets (central and distributed generation alike), it’s more often the cost of capital that determines project viability. Traditionally, utilities have almost always been the lowest-cost provider of new energy resources, and part of this advantage has rested on ready access to and favorable terms from the bond market. If that advantage is eroding, then expect new players to be able to compete for providing the nation’s energy, including providers of much smaller, distributed generation.

3) Distributed storage, when combined with already mature trends in generation and energy efficiency, compounds the disruptive threat of consumer-scale investments in energy. Many people have worried that declining demand (through energy efficiency) and distributed generation are putting enormous stress on the traditional business model for investments in central generation. That has not changed at all. So why does the emergence of storage, something that doesn’t reduce consumption or increase generation, suddenly give the markets concern? Simply put, the addition of storage gives customers the option to entirely disengage from their relationship with the utility. While most customers won’t choose to leave, and for good reasons, the threat of grid defection creates consumer leverage that will slow recent upward trends in utility rates out of competitive necessity.

4) These trends are likely to accelerate. As capital shifts from central to distributed generation, this just improves the economics of distributed resources even further, through scale benefits as well as lower cost of capital. Few people would say that we’ve even come close to market saturation for any customer segment for renewables and efficiency. As the traditional electric sector becomes a more challenging place to park capital (or even just a less certain place), more investors will start to notice that investments in distributed resources have similar risk-reward profiles, and this movement of capital will be self-reinforcing.

Distributed generation is likely to be an affordable and accessible choice for more and more customers alongside traditional utility-provided electricity. More options means more competition and increased relevance of the customer. And that’s an upgrade for users of electricity everywhere.

Perhaps this is also a time of warning for the U.S. utilities to take action in making greater effort in encouraging environment that would help to provide incentives for consumers to stay on the grid rather than defecting from the grid. On this topic, please feel free to refer to one of our earlier posts, In-Depth Analysis of Renewable Energy Policy With Toby D. Couture.

~have a bright and sunny day~

Gathered, edited, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker

Any of your questions/comments/suggestions will be welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com

Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:

Sun Is The Future (www.sunisthefuture.net) is very pleased to be able to share this interview of M. Toby D. Couture with our readers/viewers. We can learn much from this astute scholar of advanced renewable energy policy. His thorough examination of feed-in tariffs and overall renewable energy policy analysis are extremely insightful. We need more analysts such as M. Couture to guide us during our earthly transition toward the Renewable Energy Future. I am particularly optimistic with the “prosumer” concept mentioned in this video. I also liked his analogy of utility companies being equivalent to banks of financial services, becoming more of an intermediary between the electricity suppliers (from wide range of sources) and end-use customers. Finally, M. Couture reminds us the importance of encouraging environment to reduce risk for future growth potential of renewables. It is not often that during a conversation/interview of this duration (about 90 minutes) that I would be impressed with every point he’s made in his analysis. From his global perspective, we’ve come to appreciate the strength, weakness, and the reason behind various policies in different parts of the world. One cannot help but arrive at a sense of hope and optimism for our renewable energy future, if sufficient finance and policy are correctly in place as the motive force. Without further ado, I give you Toby D. Couture, below:
Besides being a Fulbright Scholar (2008-2009), Toby D. Couture had also received Contemporary Achievement Award from Mount Allison University (2012), Canadian SSHRC Scholarship, Baxter & Alma Ricard Foundation Scholarship, and A.H.Johnson Philosophy Award, you will find out more about his background, below:

Besides being an excellent speaker, M. Couture has also demonstrated, through his publications and reports, his impressive understanding of the integration of financial, political, and regulatory landscape of renewable energy. His publications are listed below:
1. The Rise and Fall of Oil (2011)
2. Analytical Brief on FITs vs. Auctions (2010)
3. Analytical Brief on Spain’s Solar PV Boom and Bust (2011)
4. Feed-in Tariffs: Arguments and Counterarguments (2010)
5. The Lesson From Spain (2013)

Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any of your questions/comments/suggestions will be welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics: